Getting my ducks in a row

 

Into serious countdown mode now, as we wait for the year to renew itself.  For me, as for many others, these weeks at year's end are traditionally a time for wrapping up the old year and looking ahead to the new.  This year, though, recent months have often found me paddling around in circles, feeling more than a little daunted by world events.

 

The week after the U.S. election, though, I witnessed a hopeful sign.  Amidst the seemingly endless rain, there was a semi-clear early morning when rosy dawn began to touch the mountains I see to the north.

 

I felt so heartened by this crack of dawn, and there immediately came flooding back to me Leonard Cohen's phrase, "…that's how the light gets in."  His 2008 version now on YouTube gives the context, and many accompanying comments observe that the message is still relevant.

 

Well – here was the theme of my end-of-year painting, already rendered un-mailable in card form with no thanks to Canada Post's job action.  The starting point was easiest:

 

After that, it was a lot of back and forth:-- Lighter, then darker, then lighter, then pinker, then whiter.  This is slipping into a very bad rhyme and not the greatest painting, but enough to share for now:  "Crack of Dawn – That's How the Light Gets In" (copyright 2024).

 

Now on to the final days of celebration, remembrance, reflection – and gratitude.  Did you catch the last post's small photo of my table lamp?

 

 

Look what's taken centre stage now, with its own overhead light – a lovely little terrarium with an air plant in its own seasonal setting.  (Thank you, friend L)

 

And friend P – not only did you present me with a pomegranate but clued me in to the fact that many cultures consider pomegranates to be lucky, and the gift of a pomegranate even more so.  How did I miss all of this?  I had to take it to the studio one morning for a quick splash.

 

And while I was theoretically doing a year-end clean-up there, I couldn't resist trying another "Crack of Dawn" with a wider view than the first.

 

Hmmm.  I'd meant to place an even greater distance between mountaintops and viewer but there's no point in trying again.  That was then, this is now. 

 

By the way, if these two mini-sketches seem a little, er, corrugated – they are, having come from an old stash maintained by the Cardboard Club.  There are corrugated clouds, you know, and also corrugated mountains.

 

And corrugated pomegranates?  I guess not –just a mouth-watering bundle.

 

 

So let's move on to the words of 20^th century Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke – whose phrase I quote almost every year.  This time I've found his full long sentence.

"And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done, full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to take it, without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon those who demand of it necessary, serious, and great things."

Dreams and foretellings

 

What a storm we've had here for the past two days! But at last today, the skies were mostly clear and I could get back to the tasks at hand – my to-do lists and planning grids till the end of the year and on into the next one.

 

When I found the title image in my photo file, I thought….hmm…I know in the classical world, they read the oracles from various signs.  Maybe there was a process for reading the future by interpreting storms and the direction of winds.  Well…..here's more than you ever wanted to know about that – having to do with the flight of birds.  And in the season's spirit of good will, this saves you from wending through a lot of very weird stuff on the internet.

 

Something else I'm doing with this post is breaking it gently to the Commedia characters that they won't have quite the starring roles they enjoyed in 2023-24.  Still, they've managed to have their last word.

 

This autumn, as I looked through old sketchbooks and journals, I came repeatedly on references to dreams.  Somehow (hello, Commedia clowns?!) a Watteau painting "Dream of the Artist" made international headlines with a UK ban on its export.

 

 It was a sign, right?  I've been wanting to get back to figures and faces so I decided to work on copying this segment:

 

 

As I've found before, it can be very instructive to try to copy a masterwork.  From a preliminary small colour note in my sketchbook, I realized the dance of these figures would present a tricky challenge.

 

At first I thought I might do a careful layout on newsprint paper, then cut out the figures and trace them onto the canvas.  That, too, became quickly confusing – so I reverted to a grid layout and preliminary pastel line drawing – nothing like Harriet Shorr recommended!

 

Just trying to equate the colours and dark-light tones made for many mornings' efforts.

 

The final outcome wasn't completely successful, but here it is – "Dancers' Dream – After Watteau" (copyright 2024).

 

There's another lesson here, too.  Sometimes at first try, a plan doesn't materialize in the way I'd hoped – such as "Up from the Earth" from this year's Summer Camp:--

 

But then it comes around bigger and better at just the right time.  Greetings from the Seasonal Seal -- barking from the comfort of swirling seas and his moss-covered rock.